The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
A wide variety of multi-speed motors are known in the art. For example, 2/6 pole motors are known in which one set of stator windings are provided for 2-pole operation and another set of stator windings are provided for 6-pole operation. In other words, a 2-pole winding is “stacked” onto a 6-pole winding (or vice versa) within a single stator. As recognized by the present inventor, this results in an inefficient use of winding material because during 2-pole operation, the 6-pole winding is idle and, during 6-pole operation, the 2-pole winding is idle. Some shared winding approaches have been proposed for three-phase 2/6 pole induction motors. However, these approaches do not work for single-phase motors.